Still Gotta Come Through Chicago

The Failures of the Bears and the NBA

Good morning Chicago.

Sorry for my absence over the last couple weeks. I would say that I’ve been grinding in my day job like Mark Zuckerberg in the early 2000s (without the perverted shit) and battled through the flu like Jordan in Game 6 in ‘97, but that would be making excuses, and as everyone knows, that is not my modus operandi.

I could also say that I type this newsletter for zero dollars in my free time so if you have something to say to me about missing a couple of weeks you can kiss my ass, but that’s also not how I operate.

I love my readers too much — if there’s any fault I do have, it’s that.

Because of that, I’m getting back in the lab and hammering out newsletters like it’s my actual job for the foreseeable future. That’s a Tim Tebow guarantee. Planning on working a little less during the holidays? Good. You can read more SGCTC.

We’re coming up on a sneaky great part of the sports calendar. The winter is not yet an annoyance in Chicago, there’s holiday parties, and most importantly, there’s a lot of football.

There’s NFL on Saturdays and a bowl game virtually every day beginning on Friday. If you think there’s too many bowl games, it’s a good thing I didn’t ask for your opinion.

People that have the opinion that there’s ever too much football in life are like people that post their “Spotify Wrapped” on Instagram at the end of the year. There’s nothing inherently wrong with either type of person, but don’t expect me personally to respect you quite as much after sharing either.

I would share my Spotify Wrapped with you, but you wouldn’t probably know any of the artists. It’s all underground, new stuff that probably hasn’t hit your radar yet.

In a similar fashion, now I’ll share an underground take here on Bears/Packers, one that was highlighted by Mike Sando in a Monday piece on The Athletic.

Aaron Rodgers can get away with saying he owns the Bears. But really, it’s more the Packers as a whole who own the Bears. The rivalry’s lopsided nature has more to do with the Bears being a joke than it has to do with the Packers being great.

And that’s what’s more embarrassing about this whole “rivalry.” The Bears’ lack of success against the Packers goes far deeper than just Rodgers.

It’s likely that the Bears brass would actually like to hide behind that conventional wisdom: though still embarrassing, we lose to the Packers because they’ve had two of the greatest quarterbacks of all time on their side over the last couple of decades.

In reality, however, the Bears can’t even give themselves that much credit.

Since Rodgers took over, the Bears have averaged 15.4 offensive points against the Packers, who have not necessarily been known for their stout defenses over the years. Even against everyone else, the Bears have only averaged 19.8 offensive points per game over that time period.

Source: The Athletic

In fact, Rodgers has been marginally worse against the Bears over the years than he’s been against the rest of the league. Despite that, well, you know his record.

The reality is actually worse than the narrative. The Bears have struggled against the Packers so mightily because they haven’t been good, specifically on offense.

Around that time period, management came out and said they were “tired of mediocrity.” Mediocrity would be better than 15.8 points per game against the Packers.

The Bears have hired offensive coaches and defensive coaches. In both cases, they’ve failed.

Matt Nagy, as I’ve said time and again, is a symptom of the problem. He’s a nasty one for sure — let’s go with shortness of breath — but he’s not the disease. That lies much higher.

Nagy said he was “having fun” after the first half of the Packer game. The first half was actually not that much less pitiful than a normal Bears half, if we’re being honest. The Bears relied on a couple of seriously improbable plays… all to hardly be up at halftime.

I’m sure the entire Bears management team fell short of realizing that though, and were more on par with Nagy’s line of thinking: that the first half represented “what the Bears could be.”

What, exactly? A team that returns a kick for a touchdown every game and gets a fluke score from Damiere Byrd? One that gives their best offensive player — David Montgomery — the ball in the first half, but not in the second, until the game is over?

Among all of this, we’re trotting out Justin Fields — who could be on his way to an AFC championship with New England right now had his fortune been altered a tad — to try to save a collapsing, decrepit organization.

Fields played well enough for the game to be worth watching, but you could tell he was in pain. Even on the pick-six, it didn’t seem like he had the zip on his ball that he would have expected.

An offensive line that allowed him to get hit on every other play didn’t help, either.

And let’s be honest, the worst defensive backfield (outside of Jaylon Johnson) I’ve maybe ever seen assembled at the professional level wasn’t going to give Fields a chance to win that game anyway.

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If you took over an NFL team, what do you think would be your downfall?

If you’re reading this, it’s likely you’d fail miserably as an executive for the Chicago Bears. But that wouldn’t make you much different from the actual people in charge at Halas Hall.

Why specifically couldn’t you, though? For instance, I know that I would be too eager in the short-term. I would probably make mistakes on the cap, especially on the margins, putting the team in precarious positions down the line. And I’d likely miss on a lot of draft talent along the way — after all, this isn’t my profession. There’s a lot of players in college that I loved who didn’t pan out in the NFL and vise versa.

Could I go and get Khalil Mack, though? Sure I could. After all, capital speaks, not the person doing the transaction. And anyone who’s even a casual fan of football saw Mack as an immediate difference maker.

The same goes for Justin Fields. Who didn’t want him, and who thought he’d be around where the Bears could grab him when they did? The answer to those questions is everybody, and nobody.

Ryan Pace is sort of running the Bears like I probably would have. The last thing you want as a fan is to feel like the guys running the show have about the same handle on the job as you would.

And this bit is only part hyperbole.

Matt Nagy will not get a head coaching job when he is finally fired this offseason. Frankly, it’s unlikely he gets an offensive coordinator job, either. The only friend he has in this league that could give him a job would be Andy Reid, and unless Eric Bieniemy gets a head coaching job, it’s unlikely that position will be open with the Chiefs. Even then, the next guy in line would probably be the Chiefs QB Coach Mike Kafka.

The idea that you’re having trouble with the decision to get rid of a guy when he may not be able to get a coordinator position the following year is all you need to know about the Bears.

Ryan Pace has done away with almost all of the Bears’ future assets, and yet the team is 4-9. He’s not had one playoff win during his time here. He’s had four stabs at the QB position, two stabs at head coaches, and free rein on transactions and nearly all of it has ended up in failure outside of the outlier that is 2018.

That is the case now, but it was also the case before the season. And yet we were greeted with an arrogant and ignorant (rare combo) press conference from Ted Phillips and George McCaskey after last season telling us that the Bears were headed in the right direction and that almost no significant changes would be made.

I could sit here and wax on how Nagy — again — proved he’s a coward by punting on the Packers 40, punting down 11 on 4th and inches, and kicking field goals while down 18 on goal to go, but that’s not worthwhile anymore.

His “Why” is clearing keeping his job, and avoiding large-margin losses on the way.

There’s just not a single person — inside or outside of Chicago — who still thinks this guy should have a job. If there is one, unfortunately, it’s the one or two people who contribute to these decisions.

The Bears organization is rotten to its core — it’s not bad luck, it’s not some curse in Chicago, just as it wasn’t with the Cubs. It’s an organization that’s incompetent, top to bottom.

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The NBA really screwed the Bulls this past week. In essence, they have two losses due to flawed protocol.

After four really good wins in a row against the Hornets, Knicks, Nets, and Nuggets that landed them in the 1st overall spot in the Eastern Conference, the Bulls were forced to play with a shell of their team against the Cavaliers and the Heat. It’s no surprise the latter two contests ended in losses.

The Bulls are 100% vaccinated, and that’s been the bargaining chip that the NBA has been dangling over players’ heads since they became readily available earlier this year.

The issue is, the protocol for players that have tested positive really hasn’t changed at all, while the regulations for what players can do in their personal lives — rightfully so — has changed a lot.

So of course there was going to be outbreaks in the NBA, and in this case, it seriously hurt a team that was playing as good of basketball as just about anybody in the league.

Now, ten Bulls players — all on different timelines — have to go through ten days of quarantining plus heart screening to make sure they don’t have Myocarditis.

Anyone reasonable would look at this situation and realize that it was set up to fail in the first place. Society has moved on from the grimmer days of COVID lockdown when no one left their homes, and yet the NBA still has rules in place for COVID-positive players that they did before a vaccine was even available.

So now, we’re in a situation where Zach LaVine — whose COVID case in late March completely derailed the Bulls season last year — is again out in protocols, despite having already tested positive within the year and having been vaccinated. And again, it’s likely to negatively affect the Bulls’ season.

From a competitive standpoint, the NBA’s approach to this could threaten the legitimacy of the NBA regular season. God knows what it could do to the playoffs.

You can argue either side, really: that the players’ liberty should be restricted, as should fans, and that the NBA should have the same protocols in place — masking, social distancing, low contact with outside world OR that players should not be subject to testing and missing time if they are not in any way symptomatic, which most of the players on the Bulls at least are not.

Either way, mashing old COVID protocols with new ones is set for disaster.

Now that the Bulls increased testing post-Thanksgiving, there was a high chance that they’d be finding more breakthrough COVID cases.

Because of that, they have two illegitimate losses and have now not practiced together for over a week.

The rest could be beneficial for banged up guys, especially Alex Caruso and his hamstring, but overall, I do not think the break is good for a team that was meshing so well.

On the other hand, it is very good — hopefully — for herd immunity purposes, at least for this season. Knowing our luck, LaVine will test positive again in May. But seriously, getting this outbreak out of the way now is undoubtedly a positive for the Bulls down the line.

It’s highly unlikely now that another outbreak will take place, and even so, the Bulls best players have basically all tested positive now. The time frame between now and the end of the season suggests we won’t see another batch of cases.

I feel fine saying this is a positive in some ways from a pure basketball perspective because Billy Donovan has informed us that the worst some players are feeling is “a bit under the weather” while others are, again, completely asymptomatic.

The real concern is from a health perspective is the other people that were affected like Bill Wennington and Stacey King, two guys that are a bit older and may have a tougher time with the virus.

Both are still out and Stacey keeps tweeting that COVID is real, which I hope we’ve all been able to gather by now. (Get well soon, Stacey).

Having said all of this, I just miss Bulls basketball, man. Not only has it been fun to watch them every single game, but it’s been a hell of a palate cleanser after being subject to the Bears on Sundays. I missed that opportunity big time last night.

The next game is against the Lakers on Sunday night. A few Lakers players have just entered protocols — as have others across the league — so we’ll see where the league goes from here. My guess is a few games get postponed, but that mostly, the NBA carries on as best they can.

I don’t think the people suggesting that the NBA completely delay the season understand the logistical challenges that come with that, even with the money issue aside. It’s very tough to move around one game, forget dozens.

Even then, if you paused the season, there’s no guarantee that the players wouldn’t be getting COVID — which is up around the country — from other people in their personal lives.

It’s still likely by Sunday that the Bulls will be missing Ayo Dosunmu, Stanley Johnson, LaVine, Troy Brown Jr., and Alize Johnson barring two negative tests in a 24-hour period for any of them beforehand.

DeMar DeRozan will be back, and likely have at least a day or two to work on his conditioning in the facilities before the game.

The Bulls play a game Monday as well, meaning that they’ll be subject to a back-to-back while severely undermanned.

They probably won’t be back together as a full team practicing until sometime around Christmas. In between now and then, they have three games. If they can win any of those, frankly, I’ll be happy.

The Bulls are probably going to fall in the standings entering 2022, all because of COVID. For the love of God, make it stop.

The over still looks good, my loyal bettors, but our aspirations have grown past just 43 or 44 wins. This is a bummer — but hopefully Billy Donovan can turn this unfortunate break into a positive somehow.

I know that’s why you all come here, to hear more about COVID. But anyway. Onward.

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Amidst all of these cheery subjects, we could use some baseball talk. Ah, the MLB is locked out.

Regardless, we’ll get to some of the Cubs and Sox offseason moves (and potential moves) in the next newsletter.

Thank you very much for reading — I appreciate it. Have a great rest of your week and we’ll see you soon.

STILL GOTTA COME THROUGH CHICAGO!